The Wolf of the Kremlin: The First Biography of L.M. Kaganvich the Soviet Union's Architect of Fear

This biography of Stalin's "Apparatus of Fear," Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich, details the atrocities he perpetrated, his position within the Soviet hierarchy, the truth behind Stalin's death and Anti-Party conspiracies, and other horrors Russians were forced to suffer

The reader wonders at the gimmick of the "affidavit" included here signed by Kahan's father, which asserts that the primary sources for this book about Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich are the wolf himselfwhom the author implicates in murdering Stalin and describes as a "self-hating Jew" and the "ultimate Jew-hater"and the author's paternal grandfather, Lazar's first cousin. He also apparently accepts as received truth family legend about the cousin from whom his Ukrainian grandfather parted as a teenager, Morris going to the U.S., Lazar to Kiev to agitate for the Bolsheviks. And Kahan (The Expectant Father's Survival Kit, etc.) fails to make clear the specific information he gleaned from an interview with his 93-year-old "Uncle Lazar" in Moscow in 1981, causing one to read with skepticism reconstructed conversations of Russian Revolution contemporaries about the purges, WW II and Kremlin politics and quotes attributed to Stalin, Khrushchev, Malenkov, Mikoyan et al. as we watch Lazar rise to power as Stalin's "apparatus of terror." A meaningful biography of the sinister Kaganovich is still to be written. Photos.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Wolf of the Kremlin is Lazar M. Kaganovich, a Ukrainian Jew who rose through party ranks under Stalin to become a prominent member of the Central Committee. Kahan, a relative, has based much of this biography upon a lengthy conversation with the subject. While Kahan aims to shed light upon an important but neglected figure, he also seeks a personal understanding of a Jew's betrayal of his own people. Kaganovich is seen as a man driven first by ambition and allegiance to his own heritage, who, when faced with a conflict between these commitments, chose ambition and survival. Appropriate for larger and specialized collections.Rena Fowler, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.